Description
Author: Frederick C. Crews
Publisher: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.
Place: New York
Year: 1963
Edition: Fourth Printing, November 1963
Format: Hardcover with original illustrated dust jacket
Page Count: 150 pages
Condition: Near Fine overall, with the original dust jacket protected in removable archival Brodart. The hardcover is clean, tight, and notably well preserved. A previous owner’s name and the date “December 8, 1964” are neatly written on the front free endpaper. The original jacket remains complete and visually appealing, with age toning and light wear consistent with its age. Please review the photographs, which form part of the condition description.
ISBN: None issued
DESCRIPTION
A wonderfully clever meeting of Winnie-the-Pooh and literary scholarship, The Pooh Perplex: A Freshman Casebook is Frederick C. Crews’s celebrated parody of academic literary criticism.
Crews presents a series of essays by fictional scholars, each claiming to uncover the “true” meaning hidden within A. A. Milne’s beloved Pooh stories. Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, and Christopher Robin are subjected to elaborate Marxist, Freudian, theological, symbolic, and other scholarly interpretations—with increasingly funny results.
Published in 1963, the book is both an affectionate tribute to Milne’s characters and a wonderfully sharp send-up of academic pretension. It remains especially entertaining for writers, English professors, students of literature, and adult admirers of Winnie-the-Pooh.
This is the fourth printing, issued in November 1963—only two months after the first printing—and it retains its desirable original illustrated dust jacket.
WHY THIS COPY IS SPECIAL
Although later editions and paperback copies of The Pooh Perplex are readily available, attractive early hardcover copies retaining the original 1963 dust jacket are considerably less common.
This copy has several qualities that distinguish it from ordinary reading copies:
• An early 1963 printing issued in the book’s original publication year
• The original illustrated E. P. Dutton dust jacket
• A clean, tight, and well-preserved hardcover
• A jacket that remains complete and displays beautifully
• Removable archival Brodart protection
• Appeal to both Winnie-the-Pooh collectors and collectors of literary satire
The neatly written 1964 ownership inscription provides a trace of the book’s early history and is fully disclosed. With its charming vintage jacket and attractive shelf presence, this is a particularly pleasing gift or collector’s copy.
WHY WE LOVE THIS BOOK
It takes the gentle world of the Hundred Acre Wood and subjects it to gloriously excessive academic analysis. The result is intelligent, affectionate, and genuinely funny. This early hardcover is especially appealing as a gift for a Pooh enthusiast, professor, writer, literary critic, or collector of unusual books.